Disclaimer: This blog discusses my personal wellness goals and is in no way a soapbox to tell anyone else how to eat, exercise and/or live their lives.

Before I get started with this adventure tale, I’ll share my health profile with you so that you can understand the inside jokes, excuses and rationalizations that have helped me reach my current state of health.

About a month ago, my mother came across some photos during her exploration of the basement flotsam and thoughtfully dropped them in the mail for me.

There I was, all of 28, hanging out with friends at a Park City club called “Cisero’s” (pay attention to that name because it comes back later in the story). I was hot, folks, and I don’t mean sweaty. I WAS HOT.

Of course I’ve aged. Everyone does. Wrinkles and gravity have changed my appearance and that’s okay, kind of. Not really, but that’s not the point.

As I recall, the photo was taken after I had ridden my mountain bike from Little Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake City to the old town park in Park City, whereupon I laid my smoking bike down in the grass and proceeded to play three hours of sand volleyball. After a brief break to change my clothes, I headed to the club to dance, of course. And have my picture taken.

Back in those heady days, I had a BMI (body mass index) of 15. BMI is a basic indicator for body fatness and can be used to determine specific health risk factors. Under 25% is generally okay. Click here to get more info on BMI.

Now I’m a 53 year old woman with a BMI of 35. In the gentlest terms, many BMI charts declare this as “obese”, which I’m sure everyone can agree is an unpleasant word. There is no good will attached to this word and thus I’ve trained by brain to always delete that “o” word and replace it with another “o” word: overweight. I can deal with that, kind of. Not really. Sigh.

As I looked at that old photo and reminisced, I made a vow to eat less, exercise more and perhaps put blonde streaks in my hair.

So last week at the Farmer’s Market, I was happily carrying a large Dutch apple pie back to my car after a fortuitous visit at a booth called “Cicerolls” where premier baker Sue Cicero had sold me one of her homemade pies! The serendipity of this occurrence (Cisero/Cicero) wasn’t lost on me although I didn’t bat an eye about buying the pie. I made a good choice when I bought the pie because how can it be wrong to buy a homemade apple pie from Sue Cicero? I made a bad choice when I ate a quarter of the pie immediately upon my return to my office.

The answer to my question is pretty clear. I know how this happened and I know I can do better. My goal is reach a BMI of 27 within 10 months. My mantra is this: make less bad choices and more good choices.

Ann Loyola is the Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Teton Valley Health Care. She lives in Alta with her husband and two children.